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The trouble with the emotions in psychology is that they are regarded too much as absolutely individual things. So long as they are set down as so many eternal and sacred psychic entities, like the old immutable species in natural history, so long all that can be done with them is reverently to catalogue their separate characters, points, and effects. But if we regard them as products of more general causes (as ‘species’ are now regarded as products of heredity and variation), the mere distinguishing and cataloguing becomes of subsidiary importance. Having the goose which lays the golden eggs, the description of each egg already laid is a minor matter. (William James, Principles of Psychology, 1890, p. 449) http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/prin25.htm

Our Affective Sciences Lab is aimed at understanding William James’ metaphorical “goose”. We study the constructive process behind what, in everyday language, we call “emotion”. One of the main constitutive elements of this process is core affect. Affect and its measurement is one of our research interests.